Premiership win for Warrandyte Netball Club Kangaroos
In a thrilling finish to their season, the Warrandyte Netball Club (WNC) 13U Kangaroos came back from a five-goal deficit in the final quarter to win the section 1 grand final by just two points.
Saturday, June 17 was grand final day for the Manningham Netball Autumn competition and
the culmination of 11 regular season rounds (12 for the 9Us and 11Us who do not play finals) and two rounds of finals.
Although WNC had six teams compete in the semi-finals two weeks earlier, only the Kangaroos had won and made it through to the grand final.
The WNC 13U Wallabies, 15U Emus and Lyrebirds, Open A/B Kestrels and Open C Eagles had all played well during the season to reach the finals but lost to stronger teams on semi-final day.
With all remaining hopes resting on the Kangaroos, it looked like WNC was going to walk away from the season empty-handed when they trailed the Eltham Panthers Stars by three goals at three quarter time.
The Stars had finished the regular season undefeated on top of the ladder, while the Kangaroos had lost three games, all to the Panthers by 2, 12 and 4 points respectively.
Kangaroos’ coach Amy Graham had spent the season building her team’s belief in themselves and their teammates, knowing that this was just as important as developing their fitness and technical skills.
The Kangaroos had had a far from ideal lead-up to the grand final, with one of their key players suffering a season-ending knee injury during a social mothers and daughters game a few weeks earlier.
They had also had a disrupted final week, having to move their training session to Andersons Creek Primary School to avoid the media who continued to surround the clubrooms searching for information or comment on the Hunter Valley bus crash tragedy.
After this it would have been easy, and perhaps expected, for the team to drop their heads and console themselves with second place and another loss to a team that had already beaten them three times during the regular season.
Instead, the Kangaroos reached deep within themselves, held their nerve, and shot seven consecutive goals in the space of eight minutes to emerge victorious with a final score of 17-15.
Congratulations to the Kangaroos for their stunning win and commiserations to the Stars, whose disappointment mirrored the Kangaroos’ excitement.
The two teams had a great rivalry during the Autumn season – a rivalry that will no doubt be continued during the Spring season.
Thank you to all the volunteers who help run the club, from the coaches, team managers, committee members through to everyone who helps at our functions and social events.
Thank you also to Warrandyte Community Bank for supporting our club and “Project Reconnect”, which has helped our community of players and families reconnect and return to the club after several years of COVID-related disruption.
Although our team numbers are still down from pre-COVID, they are up from a year ago and we have two new opens teams starting next season, with one playing in the social competition on Tuesday evenings and the other playing in the regular competition on Saturday afternoons.
To the WNC community – enjoy the season break and we will see you back for training and competition starting the week of July 10.
Warrandyte Diary, July 2023
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